JconnecT Update

Two years ago we conceived of the idea of harnessing the growing field of online education to expand our capability as an educational center for small Jewish communities in the South and beyond.  Whereas for decades we have served such communities through our high school dormitory programs, which cater to kids from communities that either don't have any Jewish high school or don't have a high school with a mission similar to ours, web conferencing technology opened up new opportunities for us to bring high quality Jewish education to middle and high school students in these communities rather than relying on them coming to us.  We then took this idea to a group of talented educators in Israel known as JETS who had the know-how to make it happen, and the JconnecT program was born.

I am proud to say that this coming year will feature our largest and most diverse JconnecT class ever with students from Charlotte, NC, Birmingham AL, Corpus Christy, TX, Jacksonville, FL, Atlanta, GA, Kansas City, MO, Vancouver, BC, and Portland, ME.

It's not too late to join, so if you know a student not currently in a Jewish Day School who is looking for a high quality supplementary school option, encourage them to watch the video above and to visit our site at www.bit.ly/jconnect .

Richard Lewis Named National Coach of the Year

Jewish Hoops America recently named Richard Lewis, the Cooper Yeshiva High School's Varsity Basketball Coach, as this year's National Coach of the Year.

The organization, which tracks, ranks, and promotes JV and Varsity basketball from Jewish teams across North America wrote the following in their announcement:

The Coach of the Year award goes to Richard Lewis of Cooper Yeshiva-Memphis, who led the Maccabees to their best record ever (27-5), a Tier I appearance at the Cooper Invitational and the Tier II title at the Sarachek Tournament. The Maccabees finished at #14 in the national JHA rankings. 

Richard, who until now has been better known for the outstanding player he was both at the CYHSB and then at Yeshiva University, is now being recognized for what may be even more impressive than any of his previous basketball achievements: taking a small group of guys from a very small school, building them up as people, teammates, and athletes, and inspiring them to give absolutely everything they have each and every time they walk out on the court.  It is the first time this award has been given to a coach from a school not located in the big Jewish communities of New York, LA, or Chicago and it is most deserved.

Congratulations to him and to his star point guard and pupil, Eli Osdoba, who was selected as a Jewish Hoops First Team All-American.

High School Graduation

Our high school graduates put on quite a show at graduation last Tuesday night.  Led by valedictorian Jeremy Cooper and salutatorians Alexa Wender and Sade Cooper, each and every student spoke (or sang) about the ways in which they have grown over years at the Cooper Yeshiva High School for Boys or the Goldie Margolin School for Girls.

We are incredibly proud of the fact that ten of our eleven graduates are heading to Israel next year to programs which include Shaalvim for Women, Tiferet, Bar-Ilan, Migdal Oz, and Emunah Ve-Omanut for the girls and Yeshivat Har Etzion, Orayyta, and Yesodei HaTorah for the boys.  This year's graduates also received acceptances to the following outstanding universities: MIT, Columbia, Barnard, Stern College for Women, Yeshiva College for Men, and NYU's Polytechnic Institute.

Two of many highlights from graduation night were the comedic speech of Avi Kirshtein, a dorm student from Charleston, SC, and the musical tribute by dorm student Ilan Eckhardt from Milwaukee, WI.  You can get a sense for each of them in the clips below.  For all of the pictures from the evening click here.

Graduate Heads to Africa

12th grade graduate, Ariana Kaufman, will be heading off to Africa this summer to cap off what has been a truly remarkable set of social action initiatives which she has led, or has participated in, throughout her four years at the Goldie Margolin School for Girls.  Here is a letter she wrote to her friends and family asking for support for her latest initiative:


Dear friends and family, 
    
 I would like to share with you the exciting news that in June I will be traveling to Ghana along with a group of other students to volunteer with Challenging Heights,  a community-based non-profit organization. Challenging Heights was started by James Kofi Annan, a former child slave. The organization is a school and home for children escaping the brutal life of slavery. 


I am looking forward to supporting Challenging Heights in whatever way I can, while learning about human rights and exploring the intersection of Judaism and social justice. My volunteer work is being organized by American Jewish World Service (AJWS). AJWS is an international development organization motivated by Judaism’s imperative to pursue justice. AJWS is dedicated to alleviating poverty, hunger and disease among the people of the developing world regardless of race, religion or nationality. AJWS is an internationally recognized responsible charity. To find out more about AJWS' status visit http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3269.
     
If you could please make a donation to help make my volunteer service possible, I would be extremely grateful. I need to raise $3,000 total. To donate, please make a check out to American Jewish World Service. You can either contact me at (901)-828-5431 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            (901)-828-5431      end_of_the_skype_highlighting and I will come pick it up when it is most convenient for you, or send it to Ariana Kaufman 461 Sutton Place Memphis, TN 38120.


 I will be following up with a phone call to encourage you to think about supporting my volunteer work. I would be happy to provide you with any additional information about AJWS if you are interested. You can also visit their web site at www.ajws.org. Thank you very much for considering my request. 


Warmest regards,
Ariana Kaufman


PS. The full amount of your donation is tax deductible. You will receive a letter from AJWS personally thanking you for your donations and explaining how to file your tax deduction.


We wish her the best of luck in this mission and chizuk to continue her extraordinary efforts in making the world a better place.

Updates and Catch Ups

I've fallen a bit behind on blogging, so I'm going to rather briefly update you on many different exciting events that have happened over the last few weeks.

First of all, I never congratulated our Boys High School on capturing the FYOS Debate Tournament Title for the first time.  Both the Boys' teams and the Girls' teams were outstanding throughout the tournament, with the final match - which pitted Zahava Gersten and Racheli Tsuna against Jeremy and Dylan Cooper - decided by the closest of margins.  Jeremy and Dylan's Negative case was just a hair stronger than Zahava and Racheli's Affirmative case (which was a plan for mining Helium 3 on the moon for the purposes of replacing nuclear fission with nuclear fusion thereby eliminating the dangers of nuclear energy and helping to solve our energy crisis) and Jeremy and Dylan walked away with 1st place team honors.  2nd place team went to Zahava and Racheli, while 3rd place honors went to team Ethan Cooper and Yaakov Kaplan.  In the speaker award category, first place went to Zahava Gersten, Jeremy Cooper took second, and debate newcomer Sade Cooper took third place.  Congratulations to them all!




In addition to being recognized internally for his debating prowess, Jeremy Cooper was also recently recognized by Princeton University's Princeton Prize in Race Relations with a certificate of accomplishment for his work as president of Bridge Builders Memphis.

Congratulations is also in order for all of our 8th grade advancees who shined brighter than ever at their Advancement Ceremony last week.  Presenting research they did on their own family's history, under the guidance of Mrs. Shelley Kutliroff, each student spoke eloquently and inspirationally, about where they have come from and the lessons they have inherited from previous generations.




A few days ago, I posted about the adorable ECE presentations at our Ice Cream Bash.  Since then, Dr. Joel Siegel has been kind enough to forward me links to the videos he took of their performance.  Here they are for you to enjoy:


Prek-3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lrGrnfZdxw&feature=relmfu
Prek-4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03PDRwnGoVI
Kindergarten: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZDjEZgLRlw&feature=relmfu

And, lastly, I promised to post pictures of our Kindergarteners from their wonderful graduation ceremony this past Sunday.  They too did a terrific job and we can't wait to see what is in store for them as they enter 1st grade!

Kindergarten Graduation Slideshow

Many parents asked me for the slideshow we showed at Kindergarten Graduation.  I hope to post pictures from the actual graduation later this week, but for now enjoy the slideshow:

Adorable ECE

Over the past five years, I have had quiet a number of opportunities to see our Early Childhood students perform. And as cute as they have been in the past, I think they took adorable to a whole new level this past week with their end of year Ice Cream Bash.

Though I wish I could have captured their songs on video, I didn't.  So these images are going to have to do:

CYHSB Alum Chosen as Top Soldier

At the ceremony marking the completion of his basic training, Avi Goldstein, last year's president of the Cooper Yeshiva High School student council, was awarded the distinction of "Top Soldier" from among the 450 soldiers in his division of the Israel Defense Force.

Avi has been selected into the Orev special forces unit of the Givati Brigade where we know he will continue to serve the State of Israel and the Jewish people with honor, dignity, and courage.

!חזק ואמץ

Debate Day #1

This year's annual policy debate tournament, which pits the debators from our Boys High School against the debators from our Girls High School, in a series of cross-examination debates on the National High School Debate topic, took a slightly different format from years past.  This year we broke the tournament up over two days, the first of which was today and the second of which will be this Wednesday.  Each of the debates centers around the issue of the United States space program, with the affirmative team presenting a plan to substantially increase the federal government's exploration and / or development of space and the negative team arguing against such a position.

This morning's debates, as expected, were fierce and well executed by both sides.  They'll clash again on Wednesday afternoon with the highest scoring team (pair of students) from each side (boys and girls) going up against each other in a public final round at 4:30pm in the CYHSB Beit Midrash.  Feel free to join us then for what promises to be an impressive, educational, and entertaining display of rhetoric, research, analysis, and lightening quick thinking.

Here are some images from today's action:

Sports Banquet

Though it's a bit late, I wanted to share the pictures from our Sports Banquet which Coach Nokes organized a few weeks ago.  The purpose of the evening was to celebrate the accomplishments of all of our student athletes from 1st grade through 12th.  It also gave us an opportunity, though, to give much deserved thanks to all of our volunteer coaches who give so much of their time for our children, and to Coach Nokes who has single handedly saw to it that our athletic program reached new heights this year and that we lay plans for even more growth in the years to come.

Klal Perspectives

For those interested in the spiritual state of the American Orthodox community, both among students and among adults, I highly suggest you read the latest edition of a relatively new journal called Klal Perspectives.  Drawn from the leadership of a rather wide spectrum of Orthodox communities, this edition is dedicated to the challenges all of our communities face in making our Judaism relevant, meaningful, coherent, and uplifting.

While some of the pieces strike a chord with me more than others -  as I'm sure they will for you -  it is important for us to understand not only our own struggles, but those of other communities as well, so that wherever possible we might join forces in seeking out effective and long lasting solutions.

Student Places 4th in National Bible Contest

As we reported several weeks ago, under the direction of Moreh Shimshon Solemon, an astounding four of our eighteen 7th graders qualified for the final round of this year's national Chidon Ha-Tanach. Tani Finkelstein, Efraim Wiener, Ariel Kampf, and Noga Finkelstein all headed up to New York this past Sunday to square off against other finalists from across the country.

While all four of students performed beautifully, Noga captured 4th place overall, just barely missing the top spot and an expense paid trip to Israel.

We again applaud all four students, their parents, and Moreh Shimshon for the dedication and hard work they put in to this most noble endeavor.  Tizku le-mitzvot!

National Merit Scholarship Winner

Earlier this week it was announced that 12th grader Jeremy Cooper was one of 8,300 students from a pool of 1.5 million across the nation chosen to receive the prestigious National Merit Scholarship.  The Commercial Appeal reported that only nineteen student from the Memphis area won the award this year: three from White Station, three from Germantown High, two from MUS, two from Hutchinson, two from St. Mary's, one from Arlington, one from Bolton, one from Collierville, one from Lausanne, one from Houston, one from the Mississipi School for Mathematics and Science, and one from a school inordinately smaller than all the others: the Margolin Hebrew Academy / Feinstone Yeshiva of the South.


This week also brought us the good news that Jeremy, who will be attending Yeshivat Har Etzion next year before heading off to Columbia University, along with last year's graduate Maddie Tavin, who is currently completing a year of study at Shaalvim for Women before heading to the Stern College Honors Program, have been accepted into the Tikvah Foundation's Summer Institute at Yale University.  The Institute is a three week intensive learning seminar headed by Rabbi Dr. Meir Soleveitchik whose theme this year is "Jewish Thought and the Good Society: Politics, Economics, and the Human Person."  With a wide array of impressive speakers and teachers lined up, the program is bound to be most enriching for both of them.

C21: Collaborative Castles

Our 4th grade was doing a literature unit on Elizabeth Winthrop's A Castle in the Attic.  Our 7th grade was about to begin a social studies unit on medieval European history.  One day just a few weeks ago, it dawned on Mrs. Brittney Friedman, our 4th grade General Studies teacher, that this was an opportunity to take all of our talk about project-based learning and the necessity of teaching collaboration, and put it into action.

So Mrs. Friedman and Dr. Whitney Kennon, our 7th grade History teacher, put their creative minds together and out came a learning experience unlike any other we've ever had here at the MHA.  Instead of the traditional presentation of material by the teacher followed by some sort of demonstration by the students of what they had or had not assimilated, the 7th graders were going to be responsible for learning about medieval life through the construction of blue prints and a detailed model of a medieval castle.  They'd have to know what each part of the castle was, what function it served, and build it accordingly. What's more, they weren't going to do it alone.  In every 7th grade group there was going to be at least one 4th grader as well. Rubrics for every step of the project - from the design, to the research, to the paper, to the presentation - ensured that their work would be of high quality and a reflective tool in which each student had to comment on the participation of others in their group ensured that everyone would pull their weight thus honing their collaboration skills.

To say that the project created excitement is an understatement.  Watching the presentations it was clear, though, that they not only enjoyed what they had done, but the learning which took place was rich, sophisticated, and, in all likelihood, will stick with them for quite some time.

Have a look at 7th graders Efraim Weiner, Ahron Braverman, and Kayla Weinstein, together with 4th grader Yehudis Tova Samuels, presenting on their castle's privies and piranhas...

Service Learning in Own Community

In case you missed Rabbi Stein's write-up in this week's newsletter, some of our high school students recently completed a truly unique, and truly inspiring, learning experience that ought to be shared with the world.

Several years ago Rabbi Lubetski introduced the Discovery Program into our high school which allows students to devote time each week to areas they wish to explore or interests they wish to further develop.  Amongst the options for our boys is a "shop" class directed by our Head of Maintenance, Mr. Steve Sims.  Rather than simply learning how to properly measure and use a variety of tools, the students decided this semester to devote their efforts to enriching the lives of others through their work.

Those of you who live in Memphis might have seen 7th grader Chaim Gersten zipping around town in recent months on his new electric mobility scooter.  While his new "wheels" have given Chaim a myriad of new opportunities, it also presented a challenge to him and to his parents: where to park it.  There really wasn't a place for it inside their house, they don't have a garage, and leaving it outside was too great a risk.

That's where our high school boys came in.  With the help of Mr. Steve, Aaron Rubenstein, Lavi Tsuna, Tzvi Joffre, and Zevi Friedman devoted this semester's shop class to planning, measuring, cutting, building, and painting Chaim his very own mini-garage.  The "shed" as our younger students referred to it, got its last coat of paint this week and then was hauled off down the street to the Gersten residence where it is now home to Chaim's scooter.

Much of the talk in education today is about applying learning to the real-world, making it relevant, and making it meaningful.  The construction of Chaim's scooter garage was pristine example of exactly that.

Yom Ha'atzmaut 2012

Yom Ha-Zikaron and Yom Ha'atzma'ut are always very special days here at the MHA.  This year, however, they seemed to rise to a whole new level.  Starting with the  programming on Yom Ha-Zikaron led by theTorah MiTzion Kollel and the b'not sherut to the choir performance and flag dance of our students at the communal celebration at Baron Hirsch, and from student visits to replicas of the Kotel, Avraham's tent, and an Israeli Army base to pita making and carnival contests, it was one meaningful, educational, and fun-filled experience after another.  Of course, Yom Ha'atzma'ut was capped off with our annual march from the school to Baron Hirsch which was led this year by our talented High School band.

I doubt there was a student in the school, from PreK3 through 12th grade, who didn't leave last week's programming feeling closer to our land, its history, and its people than they ever have before.

Help Win 50k for the MHA!

We have entered the Rack Room Shoes Campus Beautification Contest on Facebook.  The school that gets the most votes over the next two weeks will win $50,000 to improve their physical plant.  Two years ago, a small Jewish Day School in Charlotte won a similar contest run by Kohls, so it can be done!

To win, though, we need an all out effort from every supporter of the MHA across the globe.  All you have to do is follow this link once a day for the next two weeks and vote for us, then encourage all of your contacts to do the same.  It's that easy!

With your help we could be well on our way to a more beautiful and more secure campus sooner than we imagined.  So, go and vote and pass it on!

Yom HaShoah

Several parents who attended our school Yom HaShoah assembly last week, said it was among the best they had ever seen.  Powerful and to the point, our high school students, under the direction of our Torah MiTzion Kollel, acted out scenes or read short texts representing six different aspects of the Holocaust.  At the conclusion of each one, a student lit a candle and placed a prop by its side to serve as a visual reminder of what they had just seen.  The assembly, which included boys and girls from grades 3-12, was followed by a more intensive study session led by the Kollel in each of the high schools.


Here are some pictures from the day:

Pesach Play

Our second graders, under the direction of Morah Yehudit Solemon, wowed students and parents alike today with their musical performance of the Pesach story performed completely and totally in Hebrew.  Every child in the class had a significant part and every child truly shined.

Here are some clips from the play (they will load automatically one after the other).  For pictures of today's stars click here.

!חג כשר ושמח

Welcome home, Champs!

The entire school came out to greet our Cooper Macs last week when they returned home from the Sarachek Tournament in New York, for the second time in our school's history,  as the Tier II Champs (if you are wondering when the first time was, here is a clue courtesy of Coach Pace Cooper).

During the lunch time pep rally, Coach Richard Lewis summarized each of the games and described how our boys overcame the most improbable odds to accomplish this feat.  The students were then treated to this slideshow which pays tribute to what has been a magical season for Coach Lewis and the Cooper Macs:




Pictures from pep rally, including a video of the boys making their entrance, click here.

 In case you missed  it, the Commercial Appeal also got in on congratulating our boys.  Sports columnist John Varlas began his Sunday piece this week as follows:

There's a high school basketball team in Memphis that just completed its most successful season ever, finishing the year ranked among the country's top teams. Led by a talented junior point guard that averages 21 points per game, this team finished its year by winning its division in a national level tournament. 

And chances are, this is the first time you're hearing about it...

Read the rest of Varlas's column here and, in case you haven't done so already, be sure to let our boys know that they made us proud.